Burnette Shutt & McDaniel is proud to be a Midlands Green Business
Kermit the Frog used to lament that “it’s not easy being green.”
Kermit was wrong. It’s actually not all that hard to be green. It’s also a smart business practice, and, these days, it’s more important than ever.
That’s why, on Earth Day and every day, Burnette Shutt & McDaniel is committed to conserving resources and reducing our environmental footprint. Even our beautiful office in the Vista District is upcycled.
We’ve been a Certified Midlands Green Business from the start. A partnership between the city of Columbia and Richland and Lexington counties, the program recognizes business that adopt sustainable, eco-friendly practices.
The certification is based on four categories:
- Pollution prevention and air quality
- Waste reduction and recycling
- Energy conservation
- Water conservation
Aside from the good feeling that comes from doing the right thing for the environment, being green also is great for the bottom line. According to a Tech Crunch survey, more than 90 percent of businesses see cost savings as a result of green programs, ranging from lower heating and cooling expenses to less spending on paper supplies.
Easy ways to go green
Midlands Green Business offers an extensive list of tips for getting started, and some are amazingly simple and cheap. Cleaning light fixtures regularly, for example, helps maximize output. Switching to LED bulbs is a little more expensive at first, but they up to 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs and use up to 90 percent less energy.
Other steps, such as our firm’s efforts to go paperless, take a little more time and effort but result in significant savings and reduce our impact on the environment.
There also are things each of us can do everyday that can make a difference. Plastic is a huge part of our waste stream, and most of it isn’t recycled. Even when we try to do that right thing and recycle, those efforts often fail. That’s why we have stopped using individually bottled water. Instead, we put out fresh batches of cool lemon water every day for our clients to enjoy. It saves plastic and tastes delicious.
It’s undeniable that the Earth is facing numerous environmental and climate problems. While one person or one business can’t solve all of them, if we each do our part it will help.